Tina Dietz (TD) and Patrick Conteh (PC)
TD: I lived in a battle zone. I thought parents screamed at each other all the time. I didn’t know any different. So what I most loved was going out to my great aunt Shirley’s farm. It was just sixty miles. I knew that road like the back of my hand. Every mile marker we passed, I was one minute closer to just being loved.
There was no running water in the house. In the summertime, I got to put my washbasin out in the middle of the yard and the water got warm in the sunshine – I thought it was so cool.
PC: What was she like?
TD: She was super short. Never over five foot. But her attitude – like six six. I remember when I would get up in the morning, there she would be, drinking her bitter coffee. And if love had a smell, it was stale cigarettes and coffee. And I remember when I got to ride her horse Flicka for the very first time. She was just proud of me.
When I was in seventh grade, I remember writing to her. And I just asked her to take me away from my parents. I didn’t want to live in hostility anymore. I just wanted to go where I was loved.
So I mailed it. Terrified that my mom would find out. And…she wrote me back. Opening that letter was hard. I can see her handwriting. Always cursive. And…she said she couldn’t take me. She wanted to, but there wasn’t anything she could do. She told me that my parents loved me. And that they would be sad if I wasn’t there. And I think in that moment, I thought, How would they be sad when they have one less mouth to feed and one less kid to chew out?
PC: If she was here right now, what would you say to Aunt Shirley?
TD: I would just thank her for showing me that I was worthy of love. She was the adult I needed growing up. And I learned more about love at her house than I did spending 18 years under my parents’ roof. And I feel that a part of her lives in me.
